


Deuces Are Wild

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Flirting, Open Relationships, Poker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: The first time the Doctor had introduced Clara to Jane, he'd really hoped the ensuing shenanigans were a one-off event. Several meetings later, he's starting to realise that they weren't, and that he should probably stop putting Clara in temptation's way...





	Deuces Are Wild

**Author's Note:**

> This is a truly idiotic fic I wrote based on the fact that the original opening scene of Face the Raven was supposed to feature Clara, Twelve and Jane playing poker. Enjoy.

Had anyone asked the Doctor – and he had the distinct, sneaking suspicion that at some point they might, because this was his life, and people were prone to do bizarre things with little warning – he would admit with relatively little duress than introducing Clara to Jane Austen had been a bad idea. He had categorised his past decision as thus after reviewing all the evidence presented to him, and now he would be relatively willing to swear on his regenerations that: 

  * Irrespective of any evidence to the contrary, Clara had started it all by proposing the idea of a visit.
  * Despite his lingering, mildly-distracting attraction to Clara, he had hoped (really, really hoped) that that was just the effect she had on him, and was not a general trend.
  * He had been mistaken. It was a general trend.
  * This discovery had complicated his certainty that the visit had been intended as a one off, as his tiny companion had bullied him into making a return visit. And then another. And another. And another. And so on. So really, she was to blame.
  * He’d only left them alone for _five minutes_ and it wasn’t his fault what had happened to the tea set, or the tablecloth.
  * He had absolutely, definitely not ever watched anything that had occurred between the two women. More than once. 



Leaning back in his chair, he eyed his companion from over the top of his cards. She was giggling in a way that seemed wholly at odds with her general Clara-ness, and leaning progressively closer to Jane with each hand that was dealt. That would Not Do. He may have to intervene, before clothes were shed and anything escalated. 

“So,” the Doctor said as loudly as could be deemed appropriate. “If you’re not too busy flirting, it’s your go, Clara.” 

Clara, to her credit, only turned a delicate shade of pink, took a sip of her tea, then leaned in and kissed Jane on the cheek while making eye contact with the Doctor. He knew that look. That look meant she was trying to push his buttons. _That bloody woman_. “I raise… a kiss.” 

“Come on,” the Time Lord whined, knowing she was only doing it to wind him up. He knew rising to the bait would only aggravate the situation, but he somehow couldn’t help himself from doing so. “That’s unfair, we’re playing for jelly babies, not… sexual favours.” 

“Maybe you’ll have to try harder to win, then,” Clara said sweetly, poking her tongue out at him in an entirely childish manner that really, _really_ shouldn’t have been arousing. It didn’t help that he knew where that tongue had been. “After all, you’re almost out of jelly babies.” 

“I hate you,” he groused, slumping in his chair and running a hand over his face in a chagrined manner. “Everyone in? Good. Flush.” He turned over his cards and laid them out, feeling an irrational sense of smugness. He was _good_ at poker. He’d damn near invented the game, and he was superb at it, and Clara was going to lose, and he was going to get a kiss. _Up yours, Jane Austen. Stick that in your Regency pipe and smoke it._

“Straight,” Clara said, revealing her cards and wrinkling her nose as she released the Doctor had the advantage. “Damn.” 

“My poor Clara,” Jane teased, taking the English teacher’s hand and kissing the back of it tenderly. “Straight? How terrible. I raise you: a royal flush.” 

“How are you this good?” Clara complained, as Jane laid her cards neatly side by side and eyed Clara with a look the Doctor recognised with a stab of irritation. “It’s genuinely unfair. You should not be this good at poker.” 

“Your complaints are pretty, but your kisses are prettier,” Jane leant forwards and claimed Clara’s lips with her own, the two women lapsing into silence except for the odd sounds of their mouths moving together. The Doctor wasn’t sure whether to be aroused or annoyed, but his predicament was solved as they broke apart and eyed each other in a way that even he, the universe’s most oblivious man, could understand. “You’ve turned a rather lovely shade of pink.”

“Could you two maybe… not?” the Doctor asked. “I mean, we are playing poker. Or trying to, at least.” 

“My apologies,” Jane said winningly, offering the Doctor the kind of smile that might have improved his mood, had he not become abruptly aware of where Clara’s left hand was. “Your companion is most – Clara! Stop it!”

He rolled his eyes and dealt another hand of cards, watching Jane’s cheeks turn a darker shade of crimson out of the corner of his eye.

“It’s not my fault you’re just so alluring that I can’t keep my hands off of you,” Clara teased in a low voice, one hand reaching up to caress Jane’s cheek. “Maybe you should get that under control.” 

“Maybe I don’t wish to.”

“I stake five jelly babies,” the Doctor said helplessly, knowing that they weren’t paying a blind bit of notice to him. “Anyone raising that?” 

He watched as Clara scooted fractionally closer to Jane, whispered something in her ear, and then turned a fiery shade of maroon. Resigning himself to a long wait until either woman stopped blushing – or flirting with each other – long enough to raise the stakes, he took out a Sudoku book from his pocket, fished a pen from his sleeve and took a sip of his tea. 

When he next looked up, which by his own internal calculations was approximately five minutes and thirty-two seconds later, he was distinctly unimpressed to find his companion straddling Jane’s lap, her hair tumbling down her back and her skirt hitched up to a borderline obscene height. He cleared his throat and the two women broke apart, Clara turning to look at him and revealing pupils blown wide with desire and lips swollen with… well, the very vigorous kissing she’d suddenly acquired a taste for. 

“Are you…” Clara caught her breath, looking from his face to his hands and back again. “Are you doing a _Sudoku?_ ” 

“Yes,” he said in the best _duh_ tone he could manage. “I am. I’ve nearly finished my third one.” 

“We’re playing poker.” 

“Well, you two are poking something, but that doesn’t fit my general understanding of the game typically defined as poker.”

Jane laughed, to his considerable surprise, as Clara stood up, stalked around the table and attempted to tower over him. If she was seeking the height advantage, she was losing, and judging by the look of suppressed anger on her face, she knew it. “You can’t just start doing a Sudoku mid-Texas Hold’em.” 

“You can’t just start exchanging saliva with Regency authors mid-Texas Hold’em.” 

“You’re disgusting.” 

“Nope, I’m pragmatic,” he reached over and snagged a jelly baby from the centre of the table, popping it into his mouth and chewing it appreciatively. “You really can’t do just get distracted like that, people will start looking at your cards. And by ‘people,’ I mean me.” 

“Cheat,” Clara accused, all but stamping her foot in a temper. “Also, we were going to eat those sweets!” 

“Were you? You seem fairly intent on eating something, but it’s probably not as PG-friendly as these.” 

“You’re an arsehole.” 

“Darling, we both know I’m much sweeter than jelly babies,” Jane purred, and the Doctor resisted the urge to gag. “So, he makes a salient point. Do not chide him too severely, Clara. Perhaps we should take our… embraces elsewhere.” 

“Or perhaps he should leave.” 

The Doctor groaned, knowing what Clara was hinting at. “Oh, come on, please don’t have sex on the table _again_. We only just got new teacups, not to mention the fact that cleaning the linen was a nightmare, and-” 

Clara very pointedly hopped onto the edge of the table beside Jane’s seat, opened her legs, and pulled Jane to stand between them, snogging the woman as though her life depended on it. 

“So mature,” the Doctor snapped. “So very, very mature. When you’ve finished, can I have you back for an hour? We _have_ got things to do.” 

Clara, if anything, only kissed Jane with all the more ferocity, scooting back on the table to allow the author to clamber up beside her and straddle her hips.

“Please don’t have sex on my playing cards,” the Time Lord requested wearily, tucking his Sudoku book and his pen back into his pockets, before rescuing his half-finished cup of tea. “ _Please_ , they’re my good playing cards. C’mon. Get a room.” 

“We’ve got a room,” Clara mumbled, her lips still mostly occupied with kissing Jane. “Go.” 

Grumbling under his breath, the Doctor got up and stomped into the adjacent kitchen, busying himself with finding something to snack on in the interim period until Clara relinquished Jane and came to shout at him for being impolite. Or grumpy. Or both. Probably both.

 

* * *

 

Two mixed-filling sandwiches, three apples, and one jar of jam later, the door to the kitchen swung open, revealing one radiant, ruffled Clara, dressed only in stays and a pair of off-white knickers. The Doctor’s eyes nearly fell popped out of their sockets. 

“Doctor?” she asked breathlessly, and he somehow managed a grunt of acknowledgement, the majority of his brain being given over to other purposes. “You know your good playing cards?” 

“Yes,” he said in a slightly strangled tone, as she bit her lip coyly and refused to meet his gaze. “I do.” 

“They’re not your good playing cards anymore.” 

He squeaked an understanding as she edged closer to him, trying to remember how to engage his larynx and assert a complaint. 

“Also, we ate your jelly babies.” 

“Did you?” he managed, as she laid her hands on his chest. _Breathe_ , he reminded himself. _Breathe, and talk. You’re a highly-intelligent alien from Gallifrey. You can deal with this._ “That was… rude.” 

“We did,” she hummed, pulling him down for a kiss and smiling. “But we can stop off at Woolworths for sweets on the way to Monte Carlo.”

“Monte Carlo?”

“New playing cards,” she looked up at him with wide eyes, pouting fractionally as she patted his cheek. “But we might have to make _another_ detour on the way.” 

“We… might…?”

“Of course,” she kissed him again, until his brain shorted out altogether, and he was only dimly aware of her next words. “Via your bedroom, silly. We have _things_ to do.”


End file.
